Solar Market Growth

America has more than 120 million buildings, and the total net present value investment in clean energy solutions is forecast to be at least $1 trillion.

More than $15 billion was spent on US solar installations in 2014.

In 2014, over 1,000 MW of commercial solar capacity was installed representing over $3 billion of investment.

Growth was led by residential sector with 200K home systems installed in 2014... up from 50K systems in 2011.

Current market penetration in the US is less than 2%.

70% of residential solar has been financed by lease/power purchase agreements.

The U.S. solar energy industry has been the fastest-growing industry in the U.S. in recent years

Reasons for Growth in Solar

Significant decrease in equipment and installation costs

Increasing utility electricity costs

Ease of the approval process relative to other generation types

Federal subsidies and tax credit programs

State incentives

Evolving project financing structures

Solar Around the World

Historically, the United States was the leader of installed photovoltaics for many years, with a total capacity of 77 megawatts in 1996 — more than any other country in the world at the time. Then, Japan got ahead as the world's leader of produced solar electricity until 2005, when Germany took the lead. While Germany is currently approaching the 40,000 megawatt mark, China is expected to continue its rapid growth and to triple its PV capacity to 70,000 megawatts by 2017, and take over as the world's largest producer of photovoltaic power.

In 2015, 59 gigawatts of solar PV was installed worldwide, a 34% increase from 2014, and the projection for 2016 is over 64 gigawatts. With solar deployment rates accelerating, installed capacity is projected to more than double or even triple beyond 500 GW between now and 2020. By 2050, solar power is anticipated to become the world's largest source of electricity, with solar photovoltaics and concentrated solar power contributing 16 and 11 percent, respectively.

Annual installations of grid-connected PV systems paired with energy storage will grow more than threefold to reach 775 MW in 2015. Growth will occur in all three major market segments residential, commercial and utility scale and will come from a diverse range of regions.

Distributed generation of power is a great overall trend. The fact is that distributed generation still relies heavily on a grid to feed electricity to and pull electricity from to regulate generation fluctuations caused by weather. As the market moves more towards distributed power generation the value of batteries to regulate generation fluctuations is the next logical step. Growth in this section will increase exponentially as the price from batteries decreases and demand increases. Likely there will be pent up demand from existing distributed solar panel installations that don't yet have batteries.